MrVegas
07-31-2006, 03:46 PM
Hello All.....
I have been visiting this site for a while....never posted before though.
I have been reading the posts about the popularity of the sport over the past few weeks. I am in upstate NY and I can tell you that the sport of inline hockey has little respect up here. I have seen league after league shut down due to lack of interest. The time slots that were reserved for inline hockey are now taken by lacrosse, soccer.....even dodgeball in a couple of cases (that one hurt!). I lived in Maryland during my high school and college years and the sport really took off down in that area. I was shocked to see how few options there were in NY.
I have been playing inline now for about 13 years. I played some ice hockey in high school and played in a few bar leagues now and again. The thing I always loved about inline was that it could be played almost anywhere. Tennis courts, parking lots, you name it. That is why I gravitated towards inline and basically gave up ice hockey. I could play for hours with my friends at no cost. All that playing made me such a better player. Once I became skilled enough, I started to enter the NHL Breakouts with my team. We played in those for about 9 years. I thought it was a great time. It had all age divisions and several skill divisions from Beginner to Elite. Plus there was a festival type atmosphere.
In my opinion, there is not enough of these grass roots type tournaments anymore. NARCH and other tournaments like it are very slick and polished. They are basically ice hockey tournaments without the ice. There are teams with 3 full lines, indoor rinks, pucks etc etc. Now I have nothing against this type of hockey. I know that I will get roasted for saying that those are not my cup of tea. I just think that inline hockey has lost popularity because it became ice hockey. We need more outdoor tournies......will a hockey ball in a parking lot. We need to have some tournies that seperate us from ice hockey. I think that we should have celebrated our differences instead of morphing into ice hockey.
Again, I have nothing against what the sport of inline has become. I just think there is room for more grass roots efforts like NHL Breakout....even PBH had a grass roots quality to it.
I have been visiting this site for a while....never posted before though.
I have been reading the posts about the popularity of the sport over the past few weeks. I am in upstate NY and I can tell you that the sport of inline hockey has little respect up here. I have seen league after league shut down due to lack of interest. The time slots that were reserved for inline hockey are now taken by lacrosse, soccer.....even dodgeball in a couple of cases (that one hurt!). I lived in Maryland during my high school and college years and the sport really took off down in that area. I was shocked to see how few options there were in NY.
I have been playing inline now for about 13 years. I played some ice hockey in high school and played in a few bar leagues now and again. The thing I always loved about inline was that it could be played almost anywhere. Tennis courts, parking lots, you name it. That is why I gravitated towards inline and basically gave up ice hockey. I could play for hours with my friends at no cost. All that playing made me such a better player. Once I became skilled enough, I started to enter the NHL Breakouts with my team. We played in those for about 9 years. I thought it was a great time. It had all age divisions and several skill divisions from Beginner to Elite. Plus there was a festival type atmosphere.
In my opinion, there is not enough of these grass roots type tournaments anymore. NARCH and other tournaments like it are very slick and polished. They are basically ice hockey tournaments without the ice. There are teams with 3 full lines, indoor rinks, pucks etc etc. Now I have nothing against this type of hockey. I know that I will get roasted for saying that those are not my cup of tea. I just think that inline hockey has lost popularity because it became ice hockey. We need more outdoor tournies......will a hockey ball in a parking lot. We need to have some tournies that seperate us from ice hockey. I think that we should have celebrated our differences instead of morphing into ice hockey.
Again, I have nothing against what the sport of inline has become. I just think there is room for more grass roots efforts like NHL Breakout....even PBH had a grass roots quality to it.